Stephen Cannell - Runaway Heart

"Uh, Your Honor, if I might get to that in due course."

"You have some butterflies in there?"

"Your Honor, I really appreciate your help, but perhaps you might let me put on my opening statement by myself?"

"Sure. Let's do it then. You're up."

Herman looked at Susan, who reached over and squeezed his hand.

He stood and straightened his tie, then moved around in front of the plaintiff's table. Herman looked at the jury while the street people swigged their Evian bottles and leaned forward in expectation.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," Herman began. "I come before you today to tell you about an issue that may very well affect your lives.

"Most of you have seen butterflies; perhaps some of you, or all of you, even enjoy them. They are beautiful creatures. They decorate our lives, and enhance the God-given wonder of our planet." He let that sink in, pausing for dramatic effect, letting the moment hang there while he put a look of concern on his flushed face.

"Do you have anything else, or is that it?" Judge King interrupted, rudely stepping on his heartfelt moment.

"I have more, Your Honor," Herman said, getting pissed.

"Well, let's go then. Get to it."

Herman nodded, composed himself, and went on: "Perhaps you think about the beauty of the butterfly, or perhaps many of you might not think of butterflies at all. But in the next few days I am going to ask you to think about them. I'm going to ask you

to pause in your busy day and look at them, study them. Think about the millions of years of evolution that it took to beautify them and bring them to this place in the history of our planet. I'm going to ask you to wonder about the awesome process of their metamorphosis, from lowly caterpillar to graceful winged beauty. I'll ask you to notice how effortlessly they take flight, how magnificently they flutter, soft as a feather, traveling with powerful determination to distant locations. As a matter of fact, did you know that a butterfly can travel thousands of miles over the span of their short lifetimes? Incredible, isn't it?"

Judge Melissa King now stifled a yawn and shifted uncomfortably in her swivel chair. The jury shifted their gaze toward her. She had broken his rhythm again.

Herman needed some drama to get them back. So he strode over and, like David Copperfield, snapped the towel off his case with a flourish, revealing the three beautiful monarchs, which were flying around inside the terrarium as if on cue. The eyes of the jury were riveted as Herman stood aside to afford them a better view. "Behold the plaintiff," he said with a touch too much drama. "In this state alone monarch butterflies travel a distance of two thousand miles each year, down the coast of California to the middle of South America, where they build their homes and raise their families. Amazing isn't it? Amazing and inspiring."

Herman had planned another Wild Kingdom pause here to allow the jury to study the beautiful species of butterfly, but he didn't want Melissa King to jump in again, so he kept going.

"Amazing that their little brainstems know exactly where to go, guiding them year after year to the same breeding ground thousands of miles from where they came from. I'm asking you to keep this fact in mind the next time you see one of these breathtaking organisms.

"Over the course of the next few days I'll be inviting some brilliant doctors and professors from around the country to explain these butterflies to you. Dr. DeVere is going to explain their

eating patterns and how they breed, reproduce, and migrate. Dr. Masuka is going to explain, and even demonstrate to you, why they are dying in such vast numbers. Professor Viotti is going to explain the evolution of these magnificent creatures take you on a voyage of natural selection and show you the evolutionary steps, millions of years in the making, that created this unbelievable species of butterfly that is now being threatened with destruction by one generation of careless science.

"In the end you will know more about butterflies than you can imagine, but that is just part of what you will have discovered. Although these magnificent creatures are enchanting, their existence, and, yes, even their ultimate fate, is merely a symptom of a much greater problem. Ladies and gentlemen, I implore you to help me with this problem. The problem lies with a new, dangerous kind of science. Biologically Enhanced Foods." He pronounced the words like a death sentence. "In this case, a strain of corn that produces its own insecticide. In an attempt to quickly make this new, bio-enhanced Frankencorn and rush it, untested, into the market, the defendants have completely overlooked their responsibility to this three-million-year-old species, and in a larger sense, to us, as well."

"Objection, Your Honor. He's arguing the case. This is supposed to be an opening statement," Joseph Amato said from his seat.

Judge King smiled. "Objection sustained, Mr. Amato." Then she swiveled in her chair. "Herman, maybe you should control yourself."

"Yes, I'm afraid I'm very passionate about this. I'm sorry, Your Honor." Herman was once again dismayed. She had called his opponent Mr. Amato, and him Herman, like he was just some sort of courtroom joke. Worse still, he had let the defense break up his opening statement with an objection. Shitty tactics, and he knew better.

Herman went on. "Dr. Masuka is going to explain to you

how this biologically enhanced corn is producing a chemical that gets into the corn pollen that blows with the wind. This pollen from the transgenetic corn, or TG corn, then lands in the milkweed that surrounds most cornfields. Milkweed, it turns out, is a staple of the monarch butterfly's diet, so the butterflies are eating this pollen and are dying off by the millions.

"Dr. Masuka will tell you about GMO crops Genetically Modified Organisms. Right now, GMOs make up over half the U.S. soybean crop and over one third of the U.S. corn crop. Thousands of crops in the U.S. today are transgenetic crops, and that calls into question the safeguards that are being taken not only for butterflies, but also for human beings who ingest these same untested products. Are we safe, or will we follow the path of the tragically beautiful monarch butterfly?

"Over the course of this trial you will see that the defendants are blatantly disregarding these earth-sharing organisms. You will be asked to remember the cross-breeding of African honeybees, a well-intentioned experiment aimed at producing hives with more honey, but, instead, produced swarms of disastrous killer bees that have overtaken half the American continent. In their rush to try to improve upon God's work, science all too often makes tragic mistakes. We don't seem to be able to learn this lesson. So, while commercial science plays genetic roulette the rest of the life-forms on this planet suffer. Over the course of this trial you will discover that the defendants are failing to do an adequate job of testing these genetically enhanced crops prior to their worldwide distribution. How long will it be before other species suffer and die? How long before we find ourselves in the crosshairs of this new, careless science?

"Frightening, isn't it?" Herman paused for maximum effect. He had one eye on Judge King, watching her body language, hoping she wouldn't cut him off. She shifted, so he resumed immediately. "Because, like Agent Orange and Gulf War Disease, we have come to learn that the government agencies sworn to protect

us are often more interested in protecting themselves or the balance sheets of huge corporations and laboratories that contribute to politics and buy influence in Washington."

"Objection."

"Sustained."

"I'm done," Herman said. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is in your hands."

After a lot of shuffling, and whispering, and passing of notes between attorneys at the defense table, Joseph Amato got to his feet and moved front and center.